Saturday, December 26, 2009

Tiger dies of starvation in Corbett reserve

Tiger dies of starvation in Corbett reserve

Prithviraj Singh DehradunFriday, December 18, 2009

An 11-year old tigress died of starvation in Corbett park on Wednesday, forest officials informed the media on Thursday. Carcass of the big cat was discovered at Sarpduli range of the tiger reserve near Ramganga River. The Wednesday incident has raised the big cats’ death toll to nine in Uttarakhand this year.

“Apparently the tigress died natural death as it had grown older and was unable to hunt prey. This was evident from the fact that dead female big cat had lost its canines,” informed Corbett park executive director Kapil Joshi.

The forest official also corrected their earlier statement in which it was claimed that the reason for a tiger’s death on Sunday was a territorial fight. The sources said that the tiger had died of cancer. This was confirmed in the post-mortem report handed over to the Corbett park director.

Corbett park executive director Kapil Joshi said: “Initially it appeared from external injuries that the tiger died in a territorial fight but post-mortem report confirmed that it died of cardiac arrest owing to cancer. Almost four litres of blood was extracted from cavity in its stomach during post-mortem,” informed Joshi.